


The Dance

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Solavellan [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 04:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20808908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Solas is surprised by Lavellan, at times.





	The Dance

For a long moment, Solas was very still. He couldn’t quite keep the smile from his face, but he didn’t allow it to show through entirely, so that his lips merely quirked up ever so slightly at the edges. Beside him, he could feel Cole all but _glowing_ with compassionate melancholy, the emotion radiating from him, and Dorian was struck dumb.

“_It’s alright,” _Lavellan said softly, and Solas saw the crystalline glow from his palm radiate outward. “_I’m here, vhenan, let us dance.”_ He was wearing the ring they’d found on the hunter’s corpse on a chain, and he hadn’t even... _asked_. Once they’d picked it up, he’d put it around his neck and ran ahead of the party.

The spirit had been sobbing, the sound _echoing_ through the glade, radiating for miles about: “_He cannot go from me, we have yet to dance our wedding dance, our wedding dance!”_

_“Renan?” _spirit asked, its voice wavering, and in its ghostly image it looked almost like an elf long dead - how old were those bones in the hunter’s copse? A hundred years? Two hundred?_ “Renan, is that you?”_

_“For our wedding dance,”_ Lavellan said, and Solas could see the shine in his eyes even as he reached out with green-glowing hands, gently taking the spirit’s hands, made in the image of the woman long dead - Venara... “_And then you can rest. Then you can move on.”_

It was haunting. It lasted only a few steps in strange and overwhelming silence, an ethereal waltz over the green-leafed clearing floor, and then the shimmering form faded like starlight when the sun rises, fizzling away to nothing at all... 

“What was that?” Dorian asked. “The elvish?”

“We knew the spirit had gotten tangled with Venara’s memory,” Lavellan said. “She was asking for her wedding dance, I thought if I could just...”

“Finally, at peace,” Cole whispered. “So long, and then how the music played, leading her onward!”

“You could have just explained to her,” Dorian said. “She was confused, wandering--”

“But I didn’t need to explain,” Lavellan said. “The dance was all she needed.”

\--

“How is it that you find yourself so full of empathy for spirits?” Solas asked later that evening, watching Lavellan strip off his armour in the tavern room they would share together for the night, and Lavellan glanced at him as he unbuckled his jerkin at the shoulder.

“Isn’t that what you taught me?” he asked, arching his eyebrows. 

“No,” Solas murmured. “This is of your own making, not of mine. I did not dig the well of your compassion, lethallin, I am merely marvelling at how deeply it is dug.” 

Lavellan looked uncomfortable, and he shrugged his shoulders, looking back down at himself as he undid his armour, drawing it off. He set it aside, and Solas reached for him before he could begin on his shirt buttons, wrapping his arms tightly about Lavellan’s body, about his waist, burying his face at the crook of his shoulder. He oughtn’t be so attached. He oughtn’t be attached at all - he would only serve as a distraction, and oh, would the pain not be so much greater, when came his betrayal?

“Are you ashamed?” Solas asked, catching hold of Lavellan’s hands and holding them loosely beneath his own, to keep him from undressing any further. 

“No,” Lavellan said.

“What ails you, then?”

“She wasn’t dangerous,” Lavellan murmured. “She was a spirit tangled up with a dead woman, probably a spirit of compassion, once upon a time, like Cole, or of love, or something else. She wasn’t harming anybody. They aren’t meant to feel human emotions that strongly, are they? It isn’t just about turning into demons. She must have been in agony, and for how long?”

“Too long,” Solas murmured.

“I just... I don’t think it should just be me that cares, that’s all. Me and you. Cole. All the mages we know seem to think of spirits as demons in potentia. All the templars we know think of mages in the same light. When does it end?” Lavellan’s voice was quiet and even, but so heavy with emotion, so heavy with _feeling_...

Solas’ heart ached. He closed his eyes, pressing his mouth to the back of Lavellan’s neck, holding him tighter, squeezing him as tightly as he dared. “Oh, ma vhenan,” he whispered. “Ar lath ma.”

Lavellan turned in his arms, wrapping his arms around Solas’ neck and burying his face against his chest. He sighed quietly, and Solas wished he could repair all, wished, wished... 

“Ar lath ma,” Lavellan returned, the words muffled against Solas’ chest, and Solas sighed into his hair. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to hit up [my ask on Tumblr,](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask) to talk about DA in general, and definitely to recommend blogs to follow! I am open for requests (for Origins, II, and Inq). I also run a no-drama Dragon Age Discord, which [you can join here.](https://discordapp.com/invite/ttgP5v8) Please comment if you can!


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